it IS intended to have theological implications and Milton would have called it “true”, but Milton often uses allegory, saying ridiculous things, because we the reader understand it wasnt intended to be taken literally.

I think this is the catch right here — we’d understand that it wasn’t indended to be taken literally. I don’t think we have that with many of the biblical elements that are taken allegorically today. I do think they were written to be taken literally, and that was the author’s intent. Milton would’ve called his text true in an allegorical sense. Would the Tanakh writers have done the same? Or the NT writers?

I don’t have a problem with it taken allegorically today. My difficulty comes from taking it allegorically and still holding to the claim on inerrancy, when it is in fact an “error.” Now, I don’t mean this in the sense that the writers lied, but that the writers were communicating from their own cultural view, and thus would get some things wrong.

it doesnt prove the Message of the Text is wrong, only that the details are (and unrelated details at that).

I think this depends on the person, honestly. For some, if there isn’t a literal Adam/Eve, then Paul’s whole process of sin coming from Adam/Eve/the serpent is wrong, and without “original sin,” there was no need for Jesus and the whole thing is bunk. For that person, it’s chipping away at the message, and re-defining the elements of the message. Another person might say that the Tanakh has to be true, because Jesus said it was, and so if it’s not true, then Jesus is a liar (I’ve seen both of these used, although I’m not sure by posters here). But I think for some, if the writers got those physical details wrong, then it would call the theological details into question, such as heaven/hell/salvation which in many ways, are hard to define in the first place.

I understand what you mean about not throwing the message out, and that’s one of the things that troubles me about Fundamentalism. And I mean no insult to an ex-fundamentalists here. But everything of the faith seems wrapped up in the Bible, and so if that goes, everything goes. Fundamentalism doesn’t seem to focus on a relationship with the divine, or encountering the divine, but rather on the Bible-must-be-literally-true. Then again, I suppose it makes sense if the Bible is the only way one has of defining what the relationship with God is? There just doesn’t seem to be something “bigger” than the Bible driving fundamentalism.

sorry, i mistyped, i meant “arent”.

i think you make some really good pts. there is no question that it SHOULD be held to a high standard for those who claim “inerrancy”. and for those of us who dont necessarily cling to inerrancy, i STILL think it should be held to an extremely high standard.

the reason i asked that question is because when reading and analyzing a literary text, it is understood that there are allegories within it. we would not criticize another book for saying something like, “they were building a ship that was big enough to carry the whole population of San Fransisco in it.” of course, one might respond this is a ridiculous point. ok, then how about Milton’s Paradise Lost. it IS intended to have theological implications and Milton would have called it “true”, but Milton often uses allegory, saying ridiculous things, because we the reader understand it wasnt intended to be taken literally.

however, suppose this wasnt allegory, and the writer of Genesis was trying to be literal. if that is the case, then what??? it doesnt prove the Message of the Text is wrong, only that the details are (and unrelated details at that). personally, i can understand why a person would choose to reject some details of Scripture, but that doesnt mean that the Message is wrong. if the Message of the New Testament, say, is about Jesus and following him as our Rabbi, then the details about scientific understanding arent important. even theological details dont destroy the Message. here is why, because Jesus didnt write the NT. so there is a lot of possible “error” that could have come through the misinterpretation of his disciples.

even if this is the case (which i am not saying it is, just hypothesizing), the Message doesnt have to be thrown out.

that was all i was trying to get across.

what do you think?

peter

Jews judge life based upon the circulation of blood. so plants are “alive”. thus, there could very easily have been land that wasnt touched as long as there werent animals or people living there.

Wait. Are you saying that plants *aren’t* alive?

i think you are holding the Bible to a much higher standard than any other type of literature…

Well, doesn’t it get held to that higher standard by Christians themselves? (Perhaps not if they don’t take it as inerrant).

The thing is, the Bible is supposed to be produced by those guided by an absolute Truth, and yet I see it the same as another type of literature.

No, I don’t do this level of analyse on any other literature. But nor do I get told that any other literature is the result of a divine encounter, nor am I told that in other literature, supernatural things occured on the level of the Bible.

Except I’d probably get told that for the Book of Mormon or the Qur’an. The difference here is that Christianity is heavily emphasized in the Western world. If the Qur’an were just as much, then I’d be going through the same process.

sorry, i know yall have moved on…dont want to be a burden on a side pt…but notice that Genesis doesnt say it covered the entire land, just all “living” things. Jews judge life based upon the circulation of blood. so plants are “alive”. thus, there could very easily have been land that wasnt touched as long as there werent animals or people living there.

so theoretically, it is possible, that isnt wasnt the whole earth.

but aside from that, i think the crux really has to do with understanding etymology and linguistics. personally, as a literature major in college, i dont think you are being fair to the use of language. i think you are holding the Bible to a much higher standard than any other type of literature…and finally, i never said that i believe the Bible is 100% inerrant. i think there may be certain things (for sure in our Text today) that are not true. i know this shocks many, but i dont think its fair to textual criticism to say that the Scriptures are inerrant today for sure and not even likely in the original. with that said, i also can say that i believe they are extremely accurate, especially compared with other texts of the day.

peter

I understand not getting to every question. If you did that, you wouldn’t get anything else done.

While human subjective perspective is flawed, the claims of scripture to be divinely inspired put certain limits on that so as to maintain truthfulness.

But here, aren’t you essentially using the Bible to support a claim the BIble makes about itself? I would say that in the car example, the truth would be true for that person. But that’s not necessarily the “Truth.” Because at this point, we’d have to qualify what we mean by truth, which is why I see the car example working against any claim to inerrancy. Anything that people described is shaded, to some degree, by their paradigm.

Does any of that really matter as to the truthfulness of what happened? not at all.

I would say that yes, it would matter to the truthfulness. To go back to the car example: say the person says that a polka-dot elephant barged into the car, and thus causing it to crash. THis is actually not true, but to the person, that’s what s/he believes. In this case, what happened does affect the truthfulness, because the perception affects the truthfulness. I mean, honestly, why not just have Jesus vanish, rather than raise to the sky, and a voice say that Jesus is now in heaven? Why orchastrate the events in a way that plays right into that world view?

If God were constrained by the same laws of Physics that He supposedly created, would he be God or would he be a laughingstock?

My point with this example is that holding to the concept of inerrancy seems to change the meaning of the BIble to ensure that it stays inerrant. Such as the examples with the bugs, and if that were true, the meaning would then become purely metaphorical. We know that any description of God literally in the sky, or the pillars of the Earth, are literally not true. So many Christians would say that those are metaphorical, only, even though the author’s intent was literal. To me, what’s driving the belief that it’s metaphorical is the concept that the Bible must be inerrant, rather than what the Bible says itself. Rather than evaluating if the Tower of Bable can be true based on what we know of the location of heaven on the story itself, outside factors are introduced, such as the necessity of inerrancy. That inerrancy then forces the reader to say that the story is metaphorical/allegorical, rather than what the author’s actually intended, or what the story’s actually saying. As HIS says, it doesn’t answer how the stories can be accurate, or even provide a means of judging the accuracy of the stories, if we can determine the literalness vs. metaphor based on a need for inerrancy. It’s like approaching the Bible with the conclusion already set.

I have issue with this statement. I believe it does matter when parts of the story flat out don’t match with the rest of the story.

Take for example me telling the story of being on the airplane when a pilot forgets to take the mic off… (the punchline being “don’t forget the coffee… if you’d like the Joke is here - http://www.snopes.com/risque/tattled/coffee.asp )
The story works because it is plausible…I COULD have been on an airplane where this event happened. What if I were to tell the story where all the events happened on a rocket ship to mars? The story wouldn’t work, and it justs sounds silly. The facts need not be proven right, but at a minimum they do need to be plausible.